It's important to remember what the students were protesting that day: On Thursday, April 30, 1970, President Richard Nixon told the American people that we were sending troops into Cambodia. He had been elected on his promise to end the war. Rallies began around the country on May 1.

I remember where I was that day....I had just returned home from college in Ann Arbor to begin my summer job at the local record store. The news spread like wildfire, even without internet, email and cable tv. We all wore black armbands at work the entire next week and the music we played in the store reflected our anger.

Four years later (30 years ago today) May 4, 1974, I was sworn in as a lawyer to the Colorado bar and began my career as a defender of constitutional rights and the accused. Without a doubt, the draft lottery, the Vietnam war, LBJ, Hubert Humphrey and Richard Nixon were factors in my choice, and I'm proud to say I've never once looked back to question it.

To forgive is a virtue, but forgetting is an indulgence we can ill afford. Our foreign policy establishment remains addicted to empire, and is possessed by a hubris that is arguably even greater than the one that got us into Vietnam. Until they learn the lessons that the anti-war movement tried to teach them, we can expect more Vietnams ahead of us.

Check out the Kent State University Library archive collection for more photos, news, analysis and first hand accounts.

And I say this as a Kent alumna who's never been happy about the shootings, the way the investigation was handled, or the way the university's dealt with the memory of the event. But I lived in Kent for 10 years, and I know whereof I speak. Plus, will someone explain to me why Canfora's trying to get the government's copy of the tape when the original is sitting in a safety deposit box in private hands, somewhere in the Kent area?

Seriously, after covertly working to sabotage the peace talks before the '68 election -- in the grand, Repub weasal tradition -- Nixon "ended the war" on virtually the same terms offered by the Johnson administration. Tens-of-thousands of bodies and souls later.

Btw, anyone know whatever happened to the undercover guy in the college student, hippie garb, firing into the crowd of students with a 45 ?

but it seems he has listened to the private copy. Perhaps he wants to learn if the copy possessed by the government is of better quality which allows more to be heard or is longer and includes more of the event, etc.

In any event, is there any problem with a citizen obtaining acces to a record in the government's possession that cannot possibly have any bearing on national security?

But for some reason the article is silent as to whether the original tape (which is not in the hands of the government, but is in the hands of the private citizen who made it, who happens to live in the Kent area) has been made available to Canfora, or as to whether Canfora has made any attempt to get access to the original.

Decon, my impression was he was already given access to a government copy. But maybe it's just poor writing in that article.

In any case, there are plenty of reasons other than national security that the government can use to decline to turn over records. The most important that I can think of are portions of the Privacy Act and FOIA. Specifically, 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(c) which exempts from disclosure records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes which may reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.

That section of the act was used to keep an interested party from obtaining crime-scene photos in the Vince Foster case. Like Canfora, the guy seeking the records was trying to prove a government conspiracy. His request was denied because the court deemed release of the photos would be an unwarranted invasion of Foster's family's privacy.

ask if some (in my opinion overly expansive reading of the) exception to FOIA) could be constructed, I asked what is the problem with allowing a private citizen to it.

Maybe he is nuts. That shouldn't matter, should it? There is no longer any investigation which disclosure can compromise by revealing sources or techniques which would preven "justice" and invoke a larger interest than his personal interest in having it disclosed.

There is no longer any investigation which disclosure can compromise by revealing sources or techniques which would preven "justice" and invoke a larger interest than his personal interest in having it disclosed.

You may be right, but Congress has disagreed and created a whole bunch of privacy protections, including the one I mentioned.

If the courts are consistent, they'd rule in this information requrest the same way they did before. In the case I mentioned, National Archives and Records Administration v. Favish, the investigation had been closed for years. Favish just wanted the photos so he could prove his conspiracy theory. The court ruled that he couldn't have access to the photos even though the subject of the photos, Vince Foster, was dead (and thus had no privacy right). In what was pretty novel at the time, the court "discovered" that the family had an independent privacy interest in the photos.

Analogizing to the Kent State tape, where individuals who were recorded may still be alive, there is an even stronger privacy case.

between photographs portraying a gunshot victim and and an audio recording of this nature?

I didn't even mention the "personal privacy" exception in my response because, at least based on what I have read (which is limited to the stuff here) I don't see how the personal privacy exception even arguably comes into play. Whose privacy would be protected by withholding access to this audio?

Decon, I'm not saying that you're necessarily wrong. In fact, I think the court got it wrong in Favish when it decided that the privacy interest in question doesn't have to belong to the subject of the government records. It should be noted that Foster's family wasn't even a party to the litigation; the court decided on its own that they had a privacy right which precluded release of the photos.

However, I think the two cases are very similar: a federal agency has records which, long after the case has been closed, a private citizen wants to use to "prove" their pet conspiracy theory. I don't think there is a "material difference" between photos and an audio recording. Both can be evidence of a crime, both are subject to the usual Fourth Amendment rules regarding seizures.

Congress has become seriously concerned about privacy issues. Statutes, like the one I quoted, are created to protect the rights of people who have had information about them placed in the hands of the government--much like those who were recorded at Kent State. It is their privacy that would be protected by withholding this tape.

Privacy rights like this are part of a balance of competing interests. First, we want access to information the government takes possession of, because it's our government. Second, the government may have an interest in keeping some of that information private (for example, things which may compromise national security). Third, private citizens also have an interest in keeping their personal information private, even after that information has been collected as part of a government report or using the government's law enforcement powers.

People argue, "well I'm fine with privacy, but what is it really going to hurt to release just this one tape?" My answer is, "I don't know; I'd never even heard of Kent State before this morning." This is not something that requires much of a judgment call. It is reasonable to believe that the identity of individuals at Kent State could be discovered on the tape. Therefore, those individuals have a privacy interest which the government cannot just disregard--even though copies of the tape are already available to the public. That's just the way Congress wrote the law.

How proof that an actual verbal order to shoot on the part of one or more ONG officers on the ground is "proof" of a higher-level conspiracy escapes me. Now, if you had proof that someone higher up had instructed the ONG officers to give a shoot to kill order, that might be different -- but that's not what seems to be at issue here.

Maybe you lawyer folks can find some reason to differentiate between whether an order to fire was actually given or not. I've always assumed there was, and if the guardsmen fired "accidentally" or spontaneous, what's the difference? I always figured that some of them wanted to fire. The notion that they were afraid of the crowd never did hold water with me.

I was a (very) young junior college instructor at the time of the shooting. It made more of an impact on me than anything else that happened during the Vietnam war. It was the defining moment of the whole era for me, the one event above all others that told me the dominant culture was not my tribe.

I'm 61 years old. Nothing has changed. THAT'S what the Kent State shootings were all about. It matters not a whit to me whether an actual order to fire was ever given.

Maybe you could explain what the Kent State event was all about and why it's significant for us today. I read the zdnet article that Jeralyn linked, but it just turned into a rambling complaint about the U.S. trying to colonize Indochina.

I guess, what I'm asking, as someone who'd never even heard of the "Kent State Massacre" before reading about it here, "Why is this important, beyond the momentary curiosity about whether the shooting was accidental or ordered (and, of course, whether federal privacy laws would allow the release of the FBI copy of the tape;)?"

are you for real? A bunch of university students were attacked by the National Guard and four of them were shot dead -- four young students shot dead -- because they were protesting the invasion of Cambodia. What don't you understand? Protesters killed by military? This not sound important to you? You proposing a model of a society where this sort of event is not important?

A bunch of university students were attacked by the National Guard and four of them were shot dead -- four young students shot dead -- because they were protesting the invasion of Cambodia.

As with any controversy, there is more than what you just summarized.

You negelect to mention the non-students on campus.

You neglect to mention the burning ROTC building.

You neglect to mention the bonfires and private property trashing all during the weekend.

You neglect to mention the students throwing rocks at the Guards.

You neglect to mention that Kent State and Guard officials believed the Gov Rhodes prohibited rallys.

Even though there's 2 sides, none of it justfies or even explains why

twenty-eight Guardsmen suddenly turn around 180 degrees, walk back a few steps, and fire their weapons into the group located in the parking lot. Sixty-one shots are fired in thirteen seconds. Four students are killed and nine others injured

Al, I'm very much "for real." If you were discussing any of millions of deaths in the last thousand years, I would say the same thing: "Neat. Now, why is this important?" There's gotta be something about this event that makes it significant, beyond the fact that people died. Death is not an uncommon thing.

Your answer, though deliberately unhelpful, at least gives me some idea of why you think it's significant. The idea of protesters being killed by the National Guard seems to strike some powerful resonance with you. We also know that the Kent State Massacre and the Vietnam War as a whole had an life-changing impact on Jeralyn. But I'm asking, "Why is this important to me?"

On the one hand, we could go with the author of the zdnet piece that Jeralyn linked: "Until they learn the lessons that the anti-war movement tried to teach them, we can expect more Vietnams ahead of us." Except that's more of an indictment of the Vietnam War, than it is about the relevance of Kent State.

I suppose we could try and draw an analogy to the anti-war movement of today, except that there is no student protest movement like that of the Vietnam War, and there certainly aren't any National Guard shootings.

The best thing I can come up with is the standardized, "Don't forget history or it will find a way to kick you in the rear when you least expect it."

For what it's worth, Al, I get the feeling that the issues surrounding the Vietnam War may be forever stuck in an insurmountable generational gap. I didn't live through it. It's just history to me. It's so remote that there's an entire generation between it and me.

The Kent State Massacre is not something that's discussed much these days. They don't teach it in schools. Wikipedia doesn't even have a comprehensive page on it (and that's a telling indication of its modern impact!). As formative as it and the Vietnam War were for people like Jeralyn, the life-changing events of my young life are entirely different in kind.

So when I see it discussed here, I think, "What a screwed up world you guys lived in. Why did you live like that? (I often think the same thing when I hear or see historical recordings of politicians and other leaders.) Thank God I live today."

The Kent State Massacre is not something that's discussed much these days. They don't teach it in schools. Wikipedia doesn't even have a comprehensive page on it (and that's a telling indication of its modern impact!)

You're mistaken. Not only was it covered in my modern American history class in high school, but Wikipedia has an extensive page on the Kent State shootings - including a detailed timeline, discussion of the aftermath, long term effects, a list of cultural references, and a decent bibliography.

that I think about Kent State. It was for me, as for JHFarr above, a defining moment where I realized that we were not all on the same page, that we could not trust law enforcement to understand or justly enforce laws. It was a surreal moment equal to the assasination of JFK. Even stronger than the outrage was a crumbling inside - to realize that it had actually happened that National Guardsmen had fired on and killed students exercising their first amendment rights. I live in New York just blocks away from Madison Square Garden and during the Republican National Convention my neighborhood became a police state. There were hundreds of police officers on my block alone and they brought van loads of them dressed in riot gear, hiding behind barricades, to menace protesters. At one point, at the intersection of 29th Street and Eighth Avenue, they refused to allow the protesters out of one of the metal cages used to separate the groups to proceed to the next block. As the situation became increasingly tense, my heart was pounding and all I could think was that we were going to have another Kent State. I was standing outside the cage and could observe the chaos in the line of command of the NYPD, and it was terrifying. They were the ones with the guns, and batons, and riot gear, yet they were afraid of protesters holding signs and chanting "let us through". These were not frightening people, they were college students, middle-aged, even older - concerned Americans wanting to be heard. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and I suspect the FBI overroad the NYPD. Because of where I was standing I had access to the person who ended up calling the shots and it is to his credit that he defused the situation by opening the gates and letting people through. He was about my age and chances are he remembered Kent State too.

You're a child. You wouldn't understand. If someone like you, a student of your own age, was shot dead by a guardsman on a college campus today, you would grow up pretty damn quick like many of us did back then. You would understand what "life-changing event" really means. I really hope that doesn't happen.

But you see, if the lessons learned by one generation are forgotten one or two generations down the line, then no progress is made. Look at the military: They have gone to fight in Iraq exactly the same way they fought in Vietnam. They lost Vietnam, and they have lost Iraq, and they still don't understand why. And the people who cheered Nixon on back then, and the people who cheer Bush and Cheney on today, they are all equally confused by the real world that doesn't fit with their fantasies, and they still don't understand why.

Why does this have to be a freak out moment, Al. Does our every conversation have to contain sputtering outrage? Consider me a young product of the public schools and I've presented you with a teachable moment.

sociopathic fake posturing I've seen you spew out in awhile Gabe. Puff out your chest, strut, preen, and show everybody you're so tough that the deaths of a few people are like "so? big deal - lot's more where they came from - real men don't care" You trying to give that old pro ppj some competition? Found a role model you want to be if you grow up?

Anyone who wants me or others to be constrained from saying things that insult so that they will NOT feel constrained from doing things that kill, is trying to draw equivalence where there is none, and deserves absolutely no respect, civility, or any kind of tolerence whatever.

I have been reading about the Kent State Shootings a lot today. Found a very interesting blog with posted letters between President Schwartz of Kent State and a "TG"....other letters between an Kent State Professor and "TG"....1st letter of the professor on the blog is quite interesting......it's about a suspicious "SS" Person with held names. Maybe someone else will find the information as fascinating as I did.

was a seminal event in American history. The use of deadly force by American military personnel on American soil against American ciitizens was a watershed moment in the Vietnam era. More than merely enraging the "anti-war movement" the event put on stark display the extent to which the war had divided the country and caused many to reevaluate both the war and the government which was waging it.

Not only was the killing of Americans by Americans shocking, this was not Berkeley or Columbia, but a middle class public institution in "the heartland."

I'm amazed, Gabriel, that as someone who seems to be an educated person, you never heard about it before. Do publc schools not teach modern American history anymore?

One need not ascribe to any theory that Nixon and Kissinger plotted to kill kids in Ohio to acknowledge the significant and lasting impact of this tragedy. When college students get killed on a college campus by military personnel that's more significant historically than when it is done by a unbalanced individual.

Gabriel, you can argue that the baby boomers are largely a self-indulgent and self-reverential bunch and cite many examples to support that thesis, but the continued interest in Kent State and how and why it happened -- and how we can make sure it doesn't happen again -- is not a good example to cite.

History? Kent State no longer a part of the curriculum. Not part of the standardized tests? Isn't important to "No Child Left behind? Gabriels apparent educational success, and well on his way to a long and successful career as an American taxpayer (albeit a reluctant tax payer) and contributing member of a pecuniary economy without the slightest base in important and crucial events in history that should shape and form the morale background of our democratic society, while exceptionally versed in logic, neoclassical economics, and the autonomous agent.

Public schools produced Gabriel and millions just like him? Seriously, no offense Gabriel, but why am I not surprised by this failure in our public schools? Or should I more accurately say, this success (after all there is a goal in public school education) in our public schools.

When I made my upthread comment, I was hoping to hear more on why Kent State is an "important and crucial event in history," rather than simply have screamed at me: "It's important. It's obvious that it's important. You suck!" That's why I examined the article that Jeralyn linked and explored some other possibilities about why Kent State is still relevant today.

Obviously this is still an emotional issue and that that makes it difficult for some people. I can sympathise. I imagine that in 35 years my reaction to some whipper-snapper who says he's never heard of 9/11 will be similar.

I was in high school back then. The war was far away but my male friends were watching draft lottery numbers and thinking about Canada and their lives being ruined. They had no say politically as this was the day of the 21 yr old vote.
The only way to protest was to do so, and protests were by and large peaceful events. It was an absolute shock and revelation to have white middle-class students killed in the heartland.
It brought the war and the reality of our elders home to the pampered youth of the '60's in a way nothing else could.
I lived in Princeton - and the Cambodian invasion and Kent State woke up that campus of conservative upper class students. We (Princeton and HS students) surrounded the Institute for Defense Analysis and camped there for over a week.

I note that they discourage critical thinking, history textbooks give the establishment view and gloss over anything controversial. You may get a civics class but I haven't seen that used in conjunction with current events.
Of course there are exceptions but current schools (and NCLB) are geared to create a compliant population of workers for corporations. Thinkers need not apply.

The reason that Civics should not get into current events is that gets into politics. Troublesome in college because it lets the profs bias come into play, but the student has some, a small degree, of maturity to filter it with.

It should be forbidden in K thru 12 because the student has only a limited maturity and almost no experience.

you hardly qualify as a child. It doesn't surprise me that you don't want today's generation to think about politics. If young people thought seriously about politics, they would trample all over people like you. Your bias is transparent to a ten-year-old.

Well, yes. I'm pretty sure 20th Century American History was eleventh-grade. I know it was required to graduate. But we didn't cover Kent State when we hit Vietnam. Instead, we talked about Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, the Gulf of Tonkin, asymetrical warfare, the draft, Soviet involvement, and general public opposition to the war. Campus shootings didn't come into it.

Gabriel, you can argue that the baby boomers are largely a self-indulgent and self-reverential bunch

I was a college student at the time of the Kent State massacre, and I was and still am outraged by the shooting.

However, I agree with the first commenter -- Alan Canfora is nuts. I'm curious about the tapes, but I'll believe what they say when I hear them.

Without going into detail -- after the shootings there were some allegations that Canfora's actions before and during the confrontation on the Commons had helped get students killed and wounded. My impression is that Canfora has spent the long years since obsessed with pinning the blame for the shootings entirely on the authorities and absolving himself. Judging by some of his own writing, he's come a bit unglued.

The shootings were entirely unjustified, of course. Regarding who ordered what, we know the guardsmen had been given an order to "lock and load." I understand there are photographs of the shooting itself showing that 20 of the 28 guardsmen fired into the air, and 8 aimed directly at the student demonstrators. I suspect there was an order to fire into the air, and the 8 who did otherwise either didn't understand or willfully disobeyed. If they were ordered to fire at the students I'd like to know about it.

Bad things do not happen in emotionally charged situations when one entity is American civilians and the other entity is it's own military. My husband was a tot when Kent state happened but the very idea of it gives him the chills. He works for American civilians, he doesn't open fire on them!

Bad things do not happen in emotionally charged situations when one entity is American civilians and the other entity is it's own military.

What? Are you denying what happened?

I repeat.

I have never paid much attention to it, just put it down to being a government wrong provoked/caused by anti-war wrongs...

Is there something there you don't understand? Not enough outrage to make you feel all warm and fulfilled?

Tell you what. Just for Tracy.

There I stamped my foot and held my breath until my face turned red...dangerous for an old man..

Now I would guess that if I had friends there, or had been there, I would have been maximum pis*sed.

But I wasn't. And in this life I have discovered that if you pay close attention and take care of you and yours, and do the right thing yourself, things seem to work themselves out.

In otherwords, there is a limit to the outrage you can carry around all the time and be a functional human being living a productive life. Save the heavy stuff for a time and place that you can have an impact.

who told me that Kent State happens again when we forget Kent State happened. I'm not saying it didn't happen and I'm saying that because it did happen we need to remember it and stop discounting it.....unless you want the National Guard opening fire on you next year for not much reason Jim other than you are expressing an opinion that the President doesn't like.

And why are you taking it out on Tracy? Because your ranting is off-topic and appears to be a calculated attempt at insulting Tracy and trivializing her concerns about the matter that is the subject of this thread.

From my experience she can take care of herself quite nicely, or maybe you are just jealous because she hasn't said she was going to spank you.

;-)

She brought the subject up, I answered. Given that the thread is in a general discussion re Kent State, and her unnamed friend saying that you must remember or it will happen again, and her apparent belief in that... I thought it curious that she apparently doesn't believe in that when it comes to the WOT, despite Hitler, WWII, etc...

As if they teach real history in schools. Gabe, you need to be drafted. Your attitude will change significantly. That is the reason there is no student revolt today. And also the reason there is no draft (yet).

Ding,

You neglect to mention the students throwing rocks at the Guards.

And you need to mention what the Govornor said:

"We're going to use every weapon possible to eradicate the problem."

You neglect to mention the burning ROTC building.

It was a trailer. And who started it? And is the penalty usually death?

He thinks he's learned something from ppj, and thinks he's smarter. If he's not careful he's liable to become ppj if he grows up.

I'm often asked why the students on campuses everywhere are not as active in opposing the Iraq war, occupation and debacle as loudly and visibly and strongly as students opposed the Viet Nam War so many years ago now.

The answer is, they are. The difference is, the media is ignoring them.

right now but before we left Colorado Springs as Fort Carson was loading up trains with tanks the protests were huge. I took part in some of them and only ever saw them blurbed on the news if anything was said at all. We marched in the downtown area once and people came out of the stores and cafes to join us. I know for a fact that protesting gets no media play. In Crawford the counterprotesters only showed up for half an hour and they got as much media play as those of us who sat there for hours and days protesting! Talk about not fair or balanced. When I complain though my husband tells me that with these people the fair is in the fall ;(

"Many of us at Ohio University have taken classes on the principles of democracy, on justice, on ethics," says Klatt, "and with the presumption that we will use this knowledge, acquired in our classes, to become more informed citizens. Yet this knowledge we acquire is nothing if we do not put it into practice."
...
Angry at the Iraq debacle, emboldened by the Bush-Cheney tailspin, a new student radicalism is emerging whose concerns include immigrants' rights, global warming and the uncertainties facing debt-ridden graduates. Such considerations distinguish the new SDS from its historical namesake, which took shape in a very different context of economic affluence and establishment liberalism.

Many of the Vietnam protests were driven by a fear of being drafted. Others were attended by "it's the thing to do" syndrome. Many young people are attracted by crowds of other young people... see the "celebrations/riots" after a city has won a "championship"... as a bud once told me, they were great places to meet girls...

BTW - What part of his comment is not true??

BTW - You should look at some of the roots and associations of the organizations involved int the current protests.

at Kent State was very green. Most people don't like to kill, not even soldiers. Our soldiers are taught a lot about restraint now and how to use that but I don't know how much they did that then and with young National Guard they may have had very little of that if any. I am told that lack of such training, unfamiliarity, along with fear and vague orders given like "contain the crowd" can lead to a Kent State happening. Whoever said fire if anyone did actually say it could have been anyone, it could have been a very frightened private.

perhaps told a few hopped up tales about how bad the crowd could be by anyone in charge or outranking them. He has seen scared young soldiers do silly things during training that later down the road after things aren't so unfamiliar they would never do again.

that a private would be in charge. He's saying that someone scared could have thought out loud the word fire and other soldiers with fingers on the trigger could have done just that and thought about where the order came from after if even then. He has had a study on Kent State as part of career advancement training. It is sad that some people here would believe for one moment that the military doesn't consider Kent State a horrible stain on their reputation and the collective soul. You included Jim. There is no plausible reason for what happened at Kent State where today's military is concerned. Soldiers with weapons murdered our own civilians and students. There is only how to make sure it never happens again, attempt to understand why it happened or could have happened to begin with and go from there.

Our soldiers are taught a lot about restraint now and how to use that but I don't know how much they did that then and with young National Guard they may have had very little of that if any.

I think many Iraqi civilians might disagree with you here.

Tracy,

I am sure you have some information that some of us others don't via communications with your husband. However, the above sounds like a load of BS to me. Soldiers are taught to kill. Humans have a natural repulsion to killing other humans. Soldiers have to be trained to overcome this repulsion. Our military does an excellent job of doing this. Soldiers are also trained to follow orders. If they are ordered to use restraint, they will follow orders. When ordered to fire, they will do so unquestioningly. Not much has changed in the way we have trained soldiers in Vietnam and now, in terms of psychological preparation for killing and following orders.

during that time frame people were volunteering for the National Guard to avoid Vietnam. Only 1/3 of the "soldiers" from that era were probably capable of killing someone, shake out the whole 100% and maybe 10% have sociopath type personalities and about 20% absolute pacificists. So no, National Guard is not taught to kill and even of the soldiers that were "trained to kill" and went to Vietnam......only 1/3 even fired back when fired on. You certainly must know this!

90% of soldiers in Viet Nam who were in combat situations fired their weapons. This was a huge increase over the WWII and Korea and reflected a change in training that psychologically prepared soldiers for killing.

National Guard members go through basic training where most of this psychological preparation is instilled. We did achieve a higher percentage in the first Iraq War than Viet Nam (94-95% of soldiers experiencing combat fired his weapon), but there were many less instances of Combat to conclude anything from.

The National Guard at Kent State was certainly inexperienced, but they underwent training that all soldiers get. They were professionals just as the National Guard is professional today. There training is not as extensive as regulars and naturally, the chain of command is sometimes disrupted due to their part-time status. However, your disparaging of them seems to me to be more of a bias that regulars hold towards part-timers, just there are rivalries between the Army and Marines and Vice Versa.

Ps. you can drop the superior attitude. Certainly, we all have access to different sources of knowledge. Mine are no better or worse than yours.

My source for the firing statistics was a Hapers Magazine Article I read a little over two years ago. The statistics I cite could be off a percentage point or two due to a faulty memory, but the range is accurate and the trend towards an increaasing percentage from WWI to Viet Nam is certainly accurate, although you may not know this.

Meanwhile, more people were leaving the bars. Many in the crowd chanted anti-war slogans, and a bonfire was set in the street. The crowd blocked traffic for about an hour and then moved toward the center of town. Some members of the crowd began to break windows. Primarily "political targets" were attacked, including banks, loan companies, and utility companies.

The crowd then assembled on the wooded hillside beside the commons and watched as the building burned. Many shouted anti- war slogans. In the first two weeks of May, thirty ROTC buildings would be burned nationwide.

Senior Bush administration officials told Congress on Tuesday that they could not pledge that the administration would continue to seek warrants from a secret court for a domestic wiretapping program, as it agreed to do in January.

Rather, they argued that the president had the constitutional authority to decide for himself whether to conduct surveillance without warrants.

After being informed of the events, Kent Mayor Leroy Satrom declared a "state of emergency," and arbitrarily ordered all of the bars closed. Kent police, along with the mayor, then confronted the crowd. The riot act was read and police proceeded to clear the area. People inside the bars were ordered to leave, forcing hundreds more into the streets.

The crowd was herded toward the campus with tear gas and knight sticks, which was in the opposite direction in which some of them lived. Fourteen persons, mostly stragglers, were arrested. About $5000 in damage was done as 43 windows were broken--28 in one bank.

It was Army Reserve National Guard involved. Not only were the men inexperienced in any and all military applications -- they were not MPs or evidently trained in riot control. they were mobilized because the local police had lost control of the campus, but bringing order to a college campus was not their bailiwick.

No one other than those who fired their weapons (8 out of a 1000, I believe) really knows what the shooters thought they were supposed to do and even they might not know if what they thought was correct.

I've heard just about every explanation or rationalization, from stereotypical "town and gown" class resentment motivating "jealous rednecks" to shoot "spoiled hippies," to panicked reactions to a chaotic situation, to an object lesson of what can happen when government leaders invoke martial law to deal with social unrest, to a premeditated and coordinated plan to employ violence incluing deadly force to achieve political ends with the OARNG as pawns in the game.

People will argue about all that forever and many will choose to use it support whatever fits their particulat political bias. The issue here though is that regardless of why one might think it is impoetant and what the "real lessons" are, it is an extremely important event.

We still teach about Shay's Rebellion which predates the Constitution (and was a factor in scrapping the AOC) and the Whiskey Rebellion because WHENEVER military forces are employed domestically for combat purposes against fellow citizens that is of extreme significance in a nation based upon civilian supremacy and democratic ideals.

We still teach about Shay's Rebellion which predates the Constitution (and was a factor in scrapping the AOC) and the Whiskey Rebellion

Now you're talking. Some events that I've actually studied! (Although it was college rather than high school.)

At a minimum, this post has made me want to get my hands on a high school history textbook to see what actually is getting taught (or better yet, my old textbook to see what I was supposed to have learned).

If you were so interested you could have found all you want through a search engine, prior to commenting. That you are turning this into a failing of your grade school education seems disingenuous at best and dishonest at worst.

Squeaky, the point of bringing it up here is so that it will be discussed here. I'm more interested in hearing what Decon, Peaches, and Jeralyn have to say about it than I am some random people I find through Google.

For example, we all could have learned of Imus suing CBS from CNN. But Jeralyn posted about it here and so now we can have a nice little discussion about it as a 'net community.

Kent State was topical in this post and so I asked. You didn't have to participate unless you wanted to.

Political points, wha? I don't have a political preference regarding the topic of this thread. I don't care if the shooting was accidental or ordered, and I don't see what difference it makes today (unless Canfora could prove that say, Nixon ordered it, or something).

My first thought about it was devoted to issues of law surrounding the release of information gained during a law enforcement investigation. Later, I was curious about the relevance to today.

Gabriel did not fail at the public schools and that is the point. Google is not public school. We will search what we are interested in. The internet is a vast informational pool. Public schools provide the foundations for our children. They are charged with educating an informed citizenry. The purpose the citizenry should serve provides the goals for curriculum of our schools.

Who sets the goals? That is a long history and I recommend to anyone that they read The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto for an informative look at the cabal in charge of our public school system. My point is that Gabriel is an example of the product that Public schools strive to produce--efficient workers and malleable consumers and citizens/voters.

I find some hope in Gabriel's ability to be reflective and question his public schooling. It does little good to lecture him, rather, I think there has been some success in this thread in gently nudging him in the direction of looking at what he learned in the public schools and contrasting that with another perspective that more accurately reflects the historical events he was not privy to.

We probably never will have many "great" public schools because of many factors, but in the end, the deficiencies of any school do not prevent a child (or adult) from learning. Parents can pay attention and direct children to that which they feel the child is not getting from school and can stress the importance of being "educated" and how that means more than making good grades in school. Adults can choose for themselves to expose themselves to a broad range of different perspectives on a broad range of subjects.

It's when people start from the premise that only those with whom they personally identify have anything of value to offer and believe that as a matter of faith everything that challenges those prejudices must be false that the "education" truly fails.

the deficiencies of any school do not prevent a child (or adult) from learning.

I think this is the purpose or intent in public schools as well as removing the child away from the influence of the Parents and the community.

I cannot make the whole argument here, but I again suggest reading Gatto. Dumbing Us Down is another of his books that is a little more brief than the Underground History, but it still gives the basis of his argument that Schools actually do remove the child's natural inclination to learn. It is a pretty regimented and thorough deprogramming of the human mind.

All Children begin with this natural trait to learn and with a love for learning new things. Only schooling and, Public Schooling in particular, can remove this desire so efficiently. The twist is that Public Schooling is successful in building our large economy and endless scientific discoveries, more and more laws (and lawyers to interpret them) leading to a surplus of material possessions for us all. None of this has anything to do with learning however.

for 23 years. I am familiar with how they operate. A system of mass education, as with any mass system, will have shortcomings in terms of its interactions with individuals. Having to teach to the middle does stifle individual expression, creativity and, in some, curiousity. Public education (and large scale privare education) is not meant to be the be all and end all of learning. Calling it a "thorough deprogramming of the human mind" is just sloganeering. At no level from the federal DOE to the local school boards is there anything like the unanimity of viewpoints and purposes for the type of brainwashing you imply.

I agree the schools leave much to be desired but i think you far overstate the case. in fact, to the extent what you say has some merit, the schools help us learn how to resist such efforts to narrow our minds.

I also think schools serve very important socialization purposes as no matter how much book learning one has or how well developed one's reasoning ability, unless we live the life of a hermit one must learn to interact with our peers and those different from us. simply getting up and going to school and spending time with many different people is valuable.

To think that there is a conscious, unified effort to mold automotons is both giving too much and too little credit. I see the educations systems objective more as a goal of appeasing as many people as possible and outraging as few as possible. That's life in a country of 300 million people. It's not ideal but it's not a conpiracy to enlave our minds. The extreme diversity of opinion in this country would tend to show that id brainwashing is the goal, they're doing a pretty bad job of it.

If you counter with look at all the apathetic people, I'll respond with blaming the system is a cop-out. people have the freedom to do what they want and they choose to be that way-- and many of them are happy that way so more power to them.

No they don't. To be free you must have a choice. Fortunately, my family can buy that choice. Millions can not.

My youngest Grandson is in a private school at a cost of about $7,000. a year because the local school system has proven to be unable to teach the basics. In one year he has gone from being "a marginal problem" to a top flight student with no problems who is at a reading and math level two grades up and who also excels at sports.

BTW - The 7K doesn't include the $2400 I pay in direct taxes for schools, nor an estimated $4K coming from sales taxes paid by everyone.

To do so would be calling attention to the fact that he has, in this thread, explicitly stated that he supports the killing of student protesters, in two other places in this thread.

So he posts an off topic comment here hoping to be called on it and start an argument about it to keep his name in the Recent Comments list for this thread but pointing here instead, diverting attention away from him calling for the killing of protesters, with his preference being the use of automatic weapons on them.

are not an idea that should be dismissed out of hand (in the interest of full disclosure, I will note I would personally profit from their establishment), but I think attempting to create a federal program which would be equitable to all would be very difficult if not impossible.

First, the issue of widely disparate population densities means it would be nearly impossible for all children to be able to avail themselves of private education even if their parents were subsidized.

Obviously, heavily populated suburban areas would likely see the establishment of competing private institutions to serve what is perceived as a large market which would create the fewest problems. Urban areas would likely see some limited school creation despite the expectation that running schools would be more costly and problematic. Rural areas, however, would be unlikely to attract investment because economies of scale being what they are it would be very difficult for anyone to break even even if the relatively few families within a reasonable distance had subsidies available.

So, we might expect a situation where relatively low income rural people are being required to subsidize wealthier families without receiving the same benefit.

Also, every dollar subsidized has to come from somewhere. I'm going to go way out on a limb and assume you don't want tax increases to pay for the program and that you also don't favor increasing deficit spending. Do we divert current revenues from non-educational spending? do we reduce public education spending?

It's worth noting also that each student removed from public schoools will increase the per-pupil cost of total education because of those economies of scale, and fixed costs.
Now, if you are advocating increased total tax support for education which will allow for subsidized vouchers and reflect that more more money is required and simply think a different distribution of that money is worth considering, i think it's worth serious consideration, but I need to know from where the revenue will be derived. If you think we can have subsidized vochers and fund them solely from reduced tax support of public schools, i don't think it's a good idea and I know your numbers won't work.

What has made humans an evolutionary success is our ability to adapt. I, like most Americans, am a product of public Schooling. I don't want to give myself too much credit, but through random events, educational success, parental examples, and various mentors, somehow I put a premium on exploring vast areas of interest outside of the curriculum in Public Schools and managed to develop some semblance of an ability to think for myself and also some individual initiative.

I use sloganeering, not as evidence for a conspiracy, but rather to prick the interests of other people to do some of their own research. I suggested they start with Gatto. As products of public schools, too often most of us are understandably defensive over charges that compulsory Public School education began as an initiative by business owners in the fin de siecle era (the predecessor of Today's Gilded Era)in order to create pliable and docile employees and malleable consumers. We often respond with "Hey, I turned out fine." Well, I believe fine is not good enough. And Americans on average perform too often in the range of the average and fine in terms of being able to think on his or her own - as should be evidenced by most of the discussion on this forum (which is most likely above the average of other forums). Initiatives today, such as The Teaching Commission, headed by former IBM CEO Louis Gerstner and other elite members of the business and political community such as Barbara Bush, continue that tradition set forth by the founders of Public Education.

I am aware that I might possibly overstate my case, but it is done with the belief that believing public schools are just fine vastly understates the problems inherent in the system. In the end, though I agree with your and Lennon's sentiments that blaming on the institution does an individual absolutely no good. Freeing your mind instead is the better option. This requires overcoming the institionalized regimented programming of B.F. Skinner's psychology of rewards, punishments, and Bells, lines and dull classrooms with an emphasis upon rote learning, however.

The redundancy of the word average was intentional and meant to be self-referential. The fact is Public Schools treat the school body as an average. Individuals are not average. We are far from it. We only approach the average through the systematic approach of Public education. The result of a population able to free its minds would be a vast blow to our economy. No one with any say so (the elites with the moneyed interests) in thier right minds would allow that to happen.

Peaches, I'm enjoying your posts on schooling, although I am one of those people that rolls their eyes at the idea that schools brainwash the ever-loving curiosity out of students. I write now only to address your approach to the idea of average.

You write:

The fact is Public Schools treat the school body as an average. Individuals are not average. We are far from it. We only approach the average through the systematic approach of Public education.

I have two problems with this. First, by definition the majority of students in public schools will be average. That is simply what "average" means. Therefore, schools, which have a duty to reach as many students as possible, should focus on the average student first.

After taking care of as many students as possible, schools can expend their limited resources on the students that need special attention, that is, the disabled kids and the smart kids.

At least, that's how it should work. The problem is that schools themselves haven't been teaching to the average student in some time. They've been forced to change their priorities to address the needs of below-average students first.

That leaves a lot of average students twiddling their thumbs. And it leads the above-average students to start pulling out their hair. It's not about brainwashing the curiosity out of them. It's about Pavlovian conditioning that teaches them that they only have to do enough to get an "A." And, of course, schools long ago bowed to the nonsense that everyone deserves an "A" for effort.

All of what you say is correct. Your observations on Public Schools have been repeated over and over for years on end - since the beginning of Public Schools. A one model universal system for teaching children has an intention of producing similar products. That is why they teach to the average. Local and communities setting curriculum to meet the local communities needs would mean we had an education system that was diversified and more attentive to individual needs (because these individuals would become members of the community in the future.) Public Schools serve the public interest not the communities interest. We strive for a mobile workforce that can move at an instant to where jobs are available. There is no intention of serving the interest of local communities. In fact, they have systematically undercut the communities interests by pitting students against parents and communities. Your criticisms have been noted over and over, yet after many initiatives for School reform we still get the same product. We don't need reform, we need to abolish the National compulsory school system and let communities educate their students as they see fit.

I favor Community Schools that are not regulated by the Public or National government. This is a conservative position. I don't fear what the schools in other communities will do and whether or not they will meet some standard as long as individuals are free to move to a new community if they disagree with what their present school is teaching.

are not the same as the general population of the military at that time. I have two family members who served then and combat soldiers didn't take new soldiers out with them that they didn't feel they could trust with their lives, they found different jobs and places for them and everyone was fine with that. Lots of soldiers stayed in the rear in Vietnam and did support work. As far as the National Guard during that time, considering it was full of men trying to avoid Vietnam combat, I would consider most of them not very combat/killing oriented at all.

In my opinion, there was a US government conspiracy to commit a massacre at Kent State so American students would be terrorized into silence and stop the anti-war movement. The key link indicating the Kent State tragedy was a planned massacre can only be proven by undeniable evidence of a verbal command by Ohio National Guard officers to fire deadly M1 rifles into our crowd of unarmed student anti-war protesters. Soon, we will reveal this proof of conspiracy during the spring of 2007. Stay tuned!

and won't vouch for his credibility or even sanity, but I still think the audiotape should be made available to him.

He's likely going to say the sane thing in any event, but, so what? I see no even slightly compelling interest in denying access to the audiotape in general and I think it would set a horrible precedent to say HE can't have it because he's nuts. Next time, someone with a political objective wants something they might say he's nuts too, and he might not be.

A picture of a person who died from a gunshot wound is gruesome and it takes no imagination to understand how it would upset loved ones. An audiotape is entirely different. At most, it might have some cries of pain from someone who was shot and there is no indication this one does have that.

Interstingly, (and again I admit the report is very incomplete and not well written) there is no mention of any person asserting their personal privacy interest in keeping it from disclosure.

It never makes clear whether Canfora has heard the original and made a copy of it or whether he obtained an "unofficial copy" from someone other than the owner of the original.
It really doesn't even state he has not heard the "government copy at the Yale Archives" and perhaps made an authorized or unauthorized copy of that.

Nor does it explain why the "government copy" would be in the archives of a private university. Could the Yale copy be a copy of the government copy and he wants to check if the government perhaps turned over a redacted copy to Yale and has a "smoking gun" copy in its possession?

That Canfora has asked for a copy of the recording from anybody. It does appear, however, that Canfora seems to think the government ought to re-analyze the recording using current technology. And all I can say to that is, Alan, why don't you see if you can get that guy who made the original tape (who I'm betting has told Canfora to go pound salt) to let you take the original tape to a competent andio forensic analyst, and why don't you have the analysis done yourself? I'll even give you a few references.

You keep saying that but the decision in foster was based on very specific facts: the records sought were extemely graphic and gruesome photograpaphs and the family DID assert it's privact interest. That the family didn't seek to formally intervene in the action is really irrelevant. If the family felt the government was adequately representing its interests and it would be a perfectly sensible decision to rest on the stated objection to disclosure and spend a lot of money to seek intervenor statute. The family objected not on the grounds disclosure would reveal negative things about the deceased or about them but that disclosure of the photos would basically cause them unneeded anguish due to their very nature.

Here we have an audiotape of an event THAT TOOK PLACE IN PUBLIC and about which images (photographs and video) have long been in public view. I'm still not sure hwhose privacy is being protected in your hypothetical -- The families of the deceased victims? The living victims other than him? Anyone who was present? ????

We need to balance interests and exceptions to full disclosure by government in a democracy should be based on interests that are both real and compelling.

Who has a compelling personal interest in suppressing the audiotape and what is it? In Foster's case it was clear. It was his family and the interest was not to be subjected to the unwanted attention that disclosure would have wrought. you can disagree with the court's decision in foster but i see no good argument for why it dictates the same result here.

That the Nixon administration anticipated a negative domestic response to Nixon's May 1 speech disclosing the invasion of Cambodia, or that Nixon was prepared to exploit the reaction as an opportunity to come down hard on domestic dissent. There's also no real dispute that Ohio Governor Rhodes was a Nixon man who was more than willing to play along and show those hippies what-for, or that the City of Kent went along with it too, as did the school administration. In this sense there was a "conspiracy," if by conspiracy one means that the federal, state and local officials all ended up working together to address political protests with a real threat of deadly force, and there's no real dispute that it occurred.

Canfora's apparently looking for something more, but the proof he thinks he needs doesn't make sense to me. How proof that an actual verbal order to shoot on the part of one or more ONG officers on the ground is "proof" of a higher-level conspiracy escapes me. Now, if you had proof that someone higher up had instructed the ONG officers to give a shoot to kill order, that might be different -- but that's not what seems to be at issue here. Which leads me to repeat myself:

of that I am sure. I agree with you, if I read you correctly, that there was not a plan made before the event to shoot into the crowd. Or at least, I have no knowledge of such a plan. But I do know that there was an order given.

Not to be cryptic, but this is a public forum, and I am not at liberty to say more.

that day made up of Jim? That's what is relevant here and not your droning drivel. What orders were they given, were they vague? I wouldn't fight with me about this today, I have help close by that knows a lot more about such things than you do.

On the net it is more or less understood that if you make the claim, you prove the point.

The concept being is that you can't expect someone else to prove your point.

So, prove your point.

My point is, was, and will remain that NG is not a ROTC, and is thus much more of a mixture of experience.

And use what ever help you need.

But spankings are out. ;-)

Around noon, Brig. Gen. Robert Canterbury decided to disperse the demonstrators.

As a riot control measure, the maneuver was completely ineffective, even counterproductive. The students simply gave way on either side, shouted slogans and obscenities, and in some cases lobbed the tear gas canisters back at the Guardsmen. Worse, the practice field was fenced in on three sides, so that the Guardsmen in effect trapped themselves there. The students swept in behind, surrounding them. The Guardsmen responded by dropping to one knee and taking aim at the students.

Fortunately they did not open fire. But on the return trip to the ROTC building, one Guard contingent neared the southeast corner of Taylor Hall, KSU's journalism building. At that point, near a concrete pagoda recently built by engineering students as a class project, some Guardsmen suddenly turned east and fired into a nearby parking lot. The volley lasted thirteen seconds. Many Guardsmen fired into the air, but some did not, and at the end of the fusillade nine students lay wounded -- one would be paralyzed for life -- and four were dead. Of the four, only two -- Jeffrey Miller and Allison Krause -- had participated in the demonstration. Sandy Scheuer was on her way to class. So was Bill Schroeder, an ROTC cadet.

Running around wringing your hands while wearing sack clothe covered in ashes is not required to say that somethiing wrong has happened. I even gave a list of other bad things and asked if you had become familar to what happened to the coal miners while you were in the Springs.

Was I "emotionally saddened" in a large way on that day? No. No more so than I am when I hear of the deaths of other people I don't know. I just get a feeling of, what a waste, and feel sympathy for the families and friends.

What I was seized with at that time was... &^%68%54 How stupid can you be, and how in the (*)&$ did this happen? In other words I was angry.

fwiw, I went to private grammar and high school, and then went to a very good engineering college.

For most of my college freshman classmates, the first semester of math, physics, chemistry, etc., was essentially a review as they'd already had much of the material in the advanced courses they took at their public high school.

For me, Mr. private school guy, I took every advanced course my high school offered, yet I had never seen most of the stuff before and was totally behind the 8-ball from the first day of class.

So, in my experience, a private schools' average student is more advanced scholastically than the average public school student, however the public schools have more opportunity for advanced students (and probably more opportunity for special needs kids as well).

Public Schools do a pretty good job of preparing students for college. Most college courses and curriculum is also more about rote learning than individual initiative and creative thought. This goes all the way to graduate school. Nothing much changes in the approach of most institutions of higher learning. And, we can pump out engineers as well as we can pump out lawyers.

I would say your private schooling probably prepared you quite well also. Being behind the eight ball is not a bad thing. What is important is how you react to being behind the eight ball and whether or not you have the initiative to catch up. Obviously, you did and I would bet that your private schooling was partly responsible for that.

Funny, my kids' school district is providing an alternative school w/in the district for the first time this year.

The school is based on the principles of Non Aggressive Communication, Montessori, and some other stuff as well.

We were pretty excited about the school at first but then we went to a meeting where the consultant talked about, for instance, kids who who would rather do an "interpretive dance" about a book they read instead of a book report would be able to do so.

I think our kids will sit this first year out and we'll re-evaluate for the following year...

I am not going to defend this approach nor would I disparage it. Obviously in the classrooms you and I were in we can foresee a whole lot of problems resulting from a teacher suggesting such an option.

However, there are some very organized and creative teachers who are able to work with such an approach. I think it is all right for you to be skeptical and wait and see how the program works. But, in the end, it really doesn't matter how a student demonstrates what they learned from a book. The important thing is that they read the book and understand it and gain some insight from it that they can apply to the real world in a creative and useful way. That is what education is all about.

First, private schools can, and many if not most do, simply choose not to cater to the "special needs" kids-- whether those needs are academic or behavioral (obviously this helps the school profile on standardized testing). Public schools do not have that option and this makes it more difficult and costly, and makes the "average" at those schools appear worse.

My wife and I are beginning to consider your other point. Private school has served us well so far, but with high school approaching the broader curriculum at the local public high school may, depending on interests, offer advantages. Of course, this is a school in a highly populated, relatively affluent area (as probably were the schools most of your college classmates attended) and not really "typical" or "average" let alone one of the bad ones.

In my yout, I attended many schools. My elementary education was private but for a year but my secondary education was about evenly split. I attended both public and private universities.

The major differences I noted was that the private schools the kids were, unsurpisingly, more generally affluent and had the broader experiences money can buy, although there were kids at the public institutions as wealthy as anyone, they were a smaller percentage of the student body. Academically, I found the "bright kids" at the public schools were every bit as bright as the bright kids at the private schools but, again, they were a smaller percentage (although there were actually more of them because the public schools were much larger), but the private schools simply did not have the "bottom half" that the public schools has to educate.

Frankly, I am conviced that if you simply switched the students between schools the student performance change would almost perfectly correspond. The public schools would have performed better and the private ones worse if each had to work with the other's students. The relative performances had a lot less to do with the teachers, facilities and curriculum and a whole lot more to do with the students in my opinion.

I must have been lucky, I consider my public school education from K-8th top notch. Maybe it was the time period (1980's), when a lot of the NYC public school teachers were bohemian 60's types who taught the kids to think for themselves, question conventional wisdom, etc.

That groundwork served me well when I switched to a private catholic high school, as it was surely responsible for giving my religion teachers heads full of gray hairs with my constant questioning. Aside from the religion nonsense, the private high school was top notch as well. My American history teacher covered Kent State, the picture at the top of the post was in my textbook that year.

Bottom line...your education is as good as your educators. I was very lucky to have teachers who didn't follow the state mandated curriculum to the letter. Those that do sell their students short, imo.